As Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump race each other to the bottom of political decorum and plans for America, communities across the country are facing something that, by comparison, seems like comic relief. The scary epidemic started with the O.G. clowns in South Carolina and has spread virally across the country, with a disproportionate amount of clown sightings on college campuses.
Clowns are now in at least 32 states. They’ve caused school closures in Ohio and Washington, plus a lockdown in Alabama. Some of the clown threats are hoaxes. In other instances, clowns have chased people, robbed a fast food restaurant, assaulted a woman, threatened murder, and tried to lure kids into the woods.
Police departments have no choice but to take these threats seriously. I do not envy the cops who get assigned to creepy clown patrol, nor do I believe that any police department in the country has budgeted for “clown patrol expenses.” This is an unexpected cost that we, the taxpayers, must bear.
Clown scares occupy a space between “harmless prank” and “domestic terrorism.” There is no secret network of clowns, no clown propaganda, no clown ideology. There’s no need for a counter-clown insurgency beyond, “Clowns, take off the mask, and go home. Go find a better hobby. Maybe read a book or something? I don’t know. Is Pokémon Go still a thing?”
The clowning epidemic would be impossible without social media. Clowns make their threats on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This interrupts the casual reader’s steady diet of memes and dog photos. It also spreads information – and fear – to huge groups of people at the touch of a button, while keeping the people under the mask anonymous. You can sign a petition to have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ban the accounts and report those accounts to local law enforcement.
Social media has allowed clown threats to take off, but the motive behind the threats is symptomatic of something bigger. There are people all over the country who are so desperate to control something, even if it’s only where people decide to walk, that they dress up like clowns and stand alone outside for hours. That is a commitment and a legal risk with a very small reward. Hundreds of people are doing this, and the clowning incidents have been so “successful” – so few arrests have been made – that people think the risk is worth it.
A lack of control over their own lives, a lack of accountability, and a strain on communities: that’s what this election season is all about.
